Tallaght Hospital course gives adults second chance at health education

A small but well-attended graduation ceremony took place this week in Tallaght, Co Dublin.

It did not make national headlines, but for many of those involved, the occasion marked a notable achievement attained in later life, a making-up for opportunities lost, not available or not taken in youth.

The ceremony was for 28 adult students who all graduated as healthcare assistants, the happy ending to a year-long course at Tallaght Hospital’s Centre for Learning and Development.

Several of the students came to the course through existing employment with the Health Service Executive, in hospitals such as the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire, St Luke's Hospital in Rathgar or Naas General Hospital.

For others, however, their route to achievement came via the Community Employment (CE) scheme and often against an education background that did not see them progress beyond the Junior Certificate, or the Inter Cert as it used to be known.

Typical of them was Assumpta Lawlor (60) from Tallaght, a mother of four and grandmother of nine who left school after her Inter Cert. After school, Assumpta had a number of unskilled jobs.

“I worked in Shamrock Foods for 16 years. I was an operator. I looked after the damaged products,” she says, explaining her most recent employment before redundancy in 2011. “I went on jobseeker’s, but was at home doing nothing. I couldn’t handle it.”

Caring side

A friend who was familiar with

Cheeverstown House

, the Templeogue-based residential and daycare centre for 400 adults and children with intellectual disabilities, mentioned it to her and Assumpta was able to get work there as a cleaner under the CE scheme.

It was what she saw on the caring side of Cheeverstown’s work that inspired her to try to become a healthcare assistant. She liked the idea of helping people who were unable to help themselves, including washing, getting dressed, eating and helping clients get ready for outings.

The award of her certificate earlier this week is a personal triumph that Lawlor hopes will change her life.

“I have a choice now,” she says, holding her parchment. “I can go into caring.”

Being a student at 60 and with not a lot of prior formal education was a challenge, especially writing up assignments of up to 2,000 words.

“I found it very hard going back to learning at my age, but I got plenty of help from other students,” she says. “I’m delighted with myself.”

The story of fellow Tallaght resident Patricia O’Rourke (45), who also left school after her Inter Cert, is similar. A mother of four grown-up children, she feels she has spent her life looking after others and wants to carry on but doing so professionally.

She also works in Cheeverstown and hopes to be able to stay on now that she is qualified as a care assistant.

“I like working with intellectual disability,” she says. “It’s just being able to help them live normally, the way we do.”

Elaine Healy (37), a mother of two teenagers, used to work for a maternity clothing company in the Meath Street area but then became a bus escort accompanying patients from Stewarts Hospital, Lucan.

The CE scheme also brought her into Cheeverstown.

“I love doing care,” she says. “It is so rewarding. I wanted to better myself too. I never went to college and now that the children are older, it’s my time to get a bit of education.”

Fantastic place

Already a qualified care assistant,

John Akinbolade

(48), who is originally from Lagos in Nigeria where he was also a healthcare worker, topped off his basic qualification by obtaining the final of the discipline’s eight modules: caring for the elderly and those with intellectual disability.

He adores his work at Tallaght Hospital. "It's a fantastic place to work," he says.

The year-long course is run by Tallaght Hospital and is approved by Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI).

The head of learning and development at the hospital, Sandra McCarthy, says it transforms people both personally and professionally.

“They’ve all grown,” McCarthy says as students and their families gather in the sun for photos.

“They’ve all come up [to scratch] and now have a professional qualification in healthcare and that has to translate into improved quality of care delivered to patients.”

Praise

Mary O’Grady, of Cheeverstown, is unstinting in her praise of the CE scheme.

“It does so much good but you rarely hear about it,” she says.

She fretted initially over whether all students forwarded to the Tallaght course from Cheeverstown would be up to the challenge.

“One of these women didn’t have a Junior Cert and never had a job in her life. I was so concerned that she couldn’t manage [the course] that I went to her tutor but was told she was coming top of the class and got 98 per cent in one subject,” O’Grady says.

Of the 28 students, seven came from Cheeverstown and of those, five were awarded distinctions on the care assistant course.

“I have seen CE help everyone,” says O’Grady. “The educated, uneducated, young and not so young. There are so many people out there who just need someone to give them a chance in order for them to gain the education, confidence or experience necessary to secure a job.”